“DIVERGING IMPACTS OF COHESION”

Abstract

The study interprets the novel Double nationalité (Dual Citizen, Bi-national) by the Hungarian-French writer Nina Yargekov. The central issues of the work are dual belonging, bilingualism, the experiences that stem from the duality of language and culture inherited from parents, and the emigrants’ descendants new linguistic, cultural and socializing environment. The narrator of the fiction creates a distant mode of speech, thus also emphasizing the perplexing processes going on in the mental space of the protagonists or the voices debating with each other. The self-addressing speech and reading what is said in the second person plural in French gives the impression that next to the subject of the events we readers are also being addressed. The novel reflects with a critical tone the stereotypes of political propaganda, and it does not spare either the western or the eastern half of the continent. The situation of the young woman is complicated, and her communication is made more difficult in both regions by commonplace historical and national myths. Both in the French and in the Hungarian environment she feels sometimes to be a stranger, other times like someone finaly at home. The broader context of Nina Yargekov’s work is made up of works by contemporary bilingual authors who have been working on expressing similar experiences around the world.